The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-11-12
TEMPERANCE READING.
WHAT A MOTHER GAN DO.
Moral Training in the Home an Element
of Temperance Work.


of Temperance Work.
"When | can not learn from each
lesson that | give more than any pupil
III the class, | will give up teaching"
sai0 II successful teacher and author of
text books.
And the faithful mother, in at least
tt" first half dozen years of her baby's
life, will learn more lessons than she
teaches the child.
Very likely she has said to herself in
view of some of her hus bands peculiar
tiles; "Oh that l might have had part
in your early training"
Perhaps when she sees the same
traits in her boy she repeats the wish.
But us the years go on, and she sees,
not only her own peculiarities in the
child, but also the defects of her char
acter IN his training, she may say, in
ESTABLISHMENT: "Oh that | could be-
gin life again! l might have done
more to improve my mind; l might
have trained my body and made it
stronger. | could have corrected and
nodded my unbalanced temperament;
and my children would have been the
better for these self-improvements
We are not fit to have our children I'M
less we have prepared ourselves for the
trust"
But if children are always ours be-
fore we realize the part that our char
acter will play in their destiny, we can
only do our best with the material that
we have. Every child has both good
and evil in his nature, and which we
will draw out depends largely upon
ourselves.
We may not, as it is said, learn a
language easily after we are twenty,
and we may not be what we might
have been morally. But we can train
our children the more faithfully be-
cause of realizing our own shortcom-
ings.
An important part in the mother $
work is the training and educating of
healthy bodies. In rightly developing
the physical nature of her children she
is doing much to develop their moral
nature. "A sound mind is a sound
body is a tritc saying. Those in
charge of inebriate asylums regard in
temperance as bodily and mental, as
well as Il moral disease, and they think
the matter OF diet of great Importance.
The regimen llid down is: "Meat only
once Il day, and then beef or mutton
preferable, boiled or roasted, never
fried or highly seasoned, and never
allowed to include pork in any form;
much fruit, vegetables and grains, but
no pastry" In short, nothing that de-
mands unnatural labor of the digestive
organs, or that creates unnatural
thirst.
Though the remark that youth is
the time for improvement" is Il COM
mon one, it may be doubted if we re-
alize how much more plastic the mind
is in childhood than later on in life.
Early impressions have a security of
hold upon the mind greater than those
received in mature years. That a
! provincial accent or common errors in
language are seldom eradicat d after
one has grown to maturity prove this.
That moral training which has for
its end the building up of sound
moral character in our children will
not only be an element of Temperance
work, but it must of necessity have
Temperance work as an element. If
we have right principles ourselves, it
is easy to teach our children right
principles of action. But to train
them to act from these principles re-
quires eXhaustless patience and will
power on their part as on our own
Not until it is easier for them to do
right than it is to do wrong is our
training successful. Moral attainment,
like intellectual and artistic, is the re-
suit of doing over and over again the
things that we ought to do, and resist
ing again and again the temptation to
do the things that we ought not to do.
Repeated acts become habits, and
habits form character.
"But," says some disheartened
mother, sit is easy enough to write
what is good to do, but it seems, some
times, us though no other evil has Sc
many allied powers as that of in
temperance. Often the hard lot OF
evil surroundings and companions. OF
inherited tendency and parental ex-
ample, of poverty and i'll health, rises
up against one. And, when all these
things are to be met, even mother
can do little to conquer Them"
Indeed she can do much. The in.
spiration of a real life, filled with that
heroism which conquers circumstance
to win success, S better than any pa
per upon ethics. But few days ago
we folded for their last rest the hands
of a mother, the story of whose deter
mined and successful struggle with adj
verse circumstances would cheer the
faintest hearted. She was left without
father or mother at an early age, and
when only eighteen she married a man
who became Incorporate. The care
and much of the support of family OF
ten children developed upon her So
faithfully did she tram these children
that they all grew to be much above